Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology Meeting IS PAN | 4 Feb 2026

We invite you to the third seminar of the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology from the series “Engaged Research”!

📅 4 February 2026, 14:00
📍 Conference room of the Institute of Slavic Studies PAS (ul. Jaracza 1, 5th floor) and online on the Zoom platform.

Speaker:
prof. Karolina Bielenin-Lenczowska

Title of the lecture:
“Different dimensions of engagement in ethnographic research – on social positionality and micro-resistances to the demands of the neoliberal academy”.

✉️ People from outside the Institute of Slavic Studies PAS interested in attending the seminar can receive the meeting link via the secretariat: sekretariat@ispan.edu.pl

Description:
Prof. Karolina Bielenin-Lenczowska will speak about research engagement, cooperation with research partners and local researchers on the example of ethnographic research conducted in two different social and geographic contexts. The first covers research among Macedonian-speaking Muslims in Macedonia and in Italy, the second – research among descendants of Poles in southern Brazil.

The speaker will present:

• how she understands engaged research in anthropology;
• how her own social positionality influenced what she wanted and could engage in;
• how different dimensions of that engagement affected the research process and the people she worked with.

Finally, she will reflect on the consequences of these experiences for the contemporary neoliberal academy.